The ever-pondersome The War Z has managed yet another controversy, yesterday being forced to apologise to Steam users after advertising features the game simply doesn’t have. Or as Hammerpoint Interactive put it, what was “imagined” by those who “misread” the Steam page.

It seems that the description put on Steam was a touch… exaggerated, perhaps listing what the game is eventually planned to include, rather than what’s in there right now. And it didn’t even mention that the game is not yet beyond beta. Claiming to feature “areas between 100 to 400 square kilometers”, the game in fact currently only has one map, and it’s 72 square kilometers. It listed itself as having private servers, which it does not. And it sold itself as having skills to buy with experience points, despite the game having no skills at all.

An imaginary “hardcore mode” was listed, and it claimed the complete rubbish that 100 players could join a server when the limit is 50. So, well, a pack of lies? No, says executive producer Sergey Titov, it was in fact “presented in a way that could have allowed for multiple interpretations.” He continues,

“We’ve taken steps to correct this and format information presented on our Steam Store page in a way so it provides more clear information about game features that are present in the Foundation Release and what to expect in the coming weeks.

We also want to extend our apologies to all players who misread infromation about game features.”

It could be a translation thing, of course, but I’m not sure that reading the words on the screen quite counts as “misreading”. I think he meant that they “miswrote”. Incredibly, Titov’s lack of contrition goes a lot further. Yesterday GameSpy spoke to the man about the incident, and amazingly he laid the blame with the customers once more. When GameSpy persist in pointing out that they had simply listed features as included when they weren’t, Titov replied,

“I’m sure there’ll be people who will look into small details and will say “no I was mislead,” where in fact they imagined something to themselves without checking details first.”

Buh. See if you can imagine the following to yourself too!

He then goes on to say that if people feel they’ve been misled, they can just apply to Steam for a refund. Oh, okay! Because that’s always a smooth and relaxing process. His dismissive attitude throughout the interview is astonishing.

So there it is. Hammerpoint seem determined to suggest that the fault remains with customers, despite their hollow apology. And if you read that GameSpy interview, you’ll see that Titov really cannot understand what is wrong with making misleading claims about the game. Which all rather suggests you may want to think carefully before handing over money. Thanks Eurogamer.

Despite some negative press, zombie survival sim The War Z has launched on Steam and gone straight to the top of the best-sellers charts.

So it's curious timing that, on the same day the game was hitting those lofty heights, developers Hammerpoint Interactive released an update. Which introduced a new "feature".

Previously, including on the day of the game's launch, a dead character (you can have up to five) would have to wait 60 minutes before they could respawn. Tough, but it's a tough game. Now, since the patch, your respawn time is four hours.

Sounds insane, and it is, but to get around it, Hammerpoint also brought in a glowing green button that lets you respawn instantly. Provided you pay. Real money.

Each respawn costs the player 50GC, or "gold coins", a form of in-game currency that equates to around $0.40 per use. While GC can be found in the game world, there's obviously not enough to sustain regular use for transactions like this. Throw in the fact GC is, like Microsoft Points, only available in block purchases (with a minimum spend of $5), and you can see how the money will be coming in. And also where the problem is.

WarZ isn't a free-to-play title, or a cheap iPhone game, it's a retail product that people have already paid at least $15 for (there are more expensive bundles available that come with in-game currency). Now, on the very day it hits some unexpected sales success, a patch brings in a fundamental form of microtransaction?

A cynical man would say the two might just be related.

Understandably, there's already an uproar, with a Reddit thread criticising the move, as well as numerous threads on the game's official forums, including a poll of hundreds of players that votes overwhelmingly against the change.

Some fans are saying it's not that big a deal, pointing out that since you have five character slots you can cycle through them. There's also the fact the game has many other forms of microtransactions, most related to items and gear.

The counter to that, of course, is that this introduces a "pay to win" element to the game, where those coughing up for instant respawns can improve their characters at a faster rate, something you shouldn't have to contend with in a retail product, especially one that's already so full of griefers as WarZ is (my first two deaths in the game, like the one above, were from human snipers)

Hammerpoint Interactive's The War Z shot straight to the top of the Steam Top Sellers' list after its surprise "Foundation" launch yesterday, and it's remained there throughout today. Despite its apparent success, all was not well in this post-apocalyptic zombie survival shooter land. Steam users who've bought The War Z, and those who'd bought into the alpha/beta period via the official site, quickly pointed out that the Steam store page made a series of promises that the game itself just doesn't keep. We got in touch with Hammerpoint's executive producer on The War Z, Sergey Titov, who spoke to us via IM to discuss the situation, how this incident came about, and what Hammerpoint plans to do about it. What he has to say indicates what appears to be a combination of a not-so-firm grasp of the English language and a startlingly cavalier attitude toward truth in advertising.

Before we dive into the transcript, which we're presenting only slightly edited to repair the overlapping chaos that inevitably happens in IM conversations and patch up some broken English, here's a brief summary of the events that led us here: Where the Steam store page promised multiple maps ranging in size from 100 to 400 square kilometers, buyers found just one roughly 100 square km map. Where it promised 100 players per server, it delivered just 50. Where it promised rentable private servers, levelable skills, and friends lists, there was simply nothing available but menu screen placeholders. That means that thousands -- likely tens of thousands (based on Steam's concurrent players stats) -- purchased this game while under the impression that had features it simply doesn't.

While the store information was amended this morning to move most of those claims -- except for the 100-player servers -- to an "upcoming features" section, that's a shocking breach of trust from the Steam's store, which has in the past been reliable when it comes to describing features. We've contacted both Valve and Hammerpoint for comment. Valve has yet to respond regarding its policy for fact-checking developer-supplied feature lists. We'll keep you posted on that, when and if we get a response.

GameSpy: Nice to meet you, Sergey. I have some questions about the Steam release of The War Z. It has been pretty irregular, and has raised a lot of concerns, and allegations of fraud. The description that was posted yesterday, and left unchanged for approximately 24 hours, promised numerous features that simply don't exist at the moment. During that time, The War Z became the top-selling game on Steam. So thousands of PC gamers purchased a product that made promises it couldn't deliver on. What led to those promises being made on the Steam store page, and how do you respond to people who are angry about being misled?

Sergey Titov: Our Steam store description contained information about what game features [were] planned for 2012-early 2013 content updates. Some of the features have been in game for a while, so -- actually two major things -- server rentals and Skill Trees, didn't make [it] into the game yet. This being said we've realized that layout and presentation of this information needs to be changed on the Steam page, which we did today in the morning. After we did it, we [are] still enjoying being [the] Number One top-grossing game on Steam at the moment. So my point is, yes, I'm sure that few players maybe be upset, but I can assure you that based on what we're seeing number of people who post bad comments are [a] small percentage of people who actually bought [the] game.

The original Steam store text, posted December 17th.

GameSpy: There's also the issue of the max players per server, which appears to be 50 in our testing but is still promised as 100 on the Steam page. It also claimed multiple areas of between 100 to 400 square kilometers, but delivered only one area of around 100 square kilometers. I'm sure that many people do enjoy playing The War Z, but the issue isn't whether it's a good game or a bad game. It's a matter of truth in advertising.

Sergey Titov: Max players -- I'm not sure why this is even an issue. [The] text clearly stated "up to 100 players." And 50 players [which] we have right now -- is what our players -- our community feels is comfortable level for them to play. We had it at 40, we've raised it to 70, and after that we've asked our players, "What you want this number to be for Colorado map?" Over 90,000 players took [the] survey and most of them said -- 50. This is why this number is set to 50 right now. Yet -- on your own private servers you will be able to set to 100 if you want . Size of the area, once again, come on -- [the] first map is over 100 sq km . So [the] text is right. And for our next big map, California, we're testing map size of 420sq km.

GameSpy: The original text, which was up for a day, claimed "A huge persistent world: The War Z is an open world game. Each world has areas between 100 to 400 square kilometers." "Each world" implies multiple worlds. "Areas" is plural, again implying multiple areas. It currently delivers just one area that does not approach 200km in size, much less 400. And do you not see it as a problem for the store to claim that I can play on a 100-player server, yet when I buy it, I am limited to playing on a 50-player server?

Sergey Titov: Okay -- if text is saying "up to 100 players" -- yes, I may imagine situation when somebody will say "okay it HAVE TO BE 100." "Over 100 sq km" falls in "100 to 400" right? Okay my point is -- online games are [a] living breathing GAME SERVICE. This is not a boxed product that you buy one time. It's evolving product that will have more and more features and content coming it. This is what The War Z is.

GameSpy: I understand that. It is now a common practice for a game to add more features in the future. However, that is not what happened here. What happened here is that Hammerpoint claimed, through Steam, that these features exist today.

The updated Steam store text, posted December 18th.

Sergey Titov: I'm sure there'll be people who will look into small details and will say "no I was mislead," where in fact they imagined something to themselves without checking details first. I'm sure that Steam have it's refund policies that should handle those situations.

GameSpy: Steam is actually very stingy about refunds. However, in an unusual case like this, I imagine they'll be forced to make an exception. Does Hammerpoint have a system in place to refund customers who feel they've been misled by unfulfilled promises?

Sergey Titov: Hammerpoint, since its early stages of Alpha, provided refunds to players who can't play game for some reasons. We've granted refund to even those players who come top us and said -- your game is shit. And if we went and see that he played like 20 minutes, we've refunded him. Yet if somebody have played like 5-10 hours and decided he doesn't like game - we clearly didn't provided refunds to them. In [the] case of Steam -- it's up to Steam to decide if they provide or not refunds. I mean -- we do not have access to that part of the Steam ecosystem.

Let's be frank: when you read "up to 100 players" -- what does it mean to you personally? I mean, for me it doesn't mean that I will play with 99 other players. Really And yes game supports 100 players -- heck, it supports actually over 400 players per server as of today. Do we have servers launched with this number of slots? No we don't, because this is not what our players WANT.

GameSpy: Yes, frankly, it absolutely does mean that the game will support 100 players. Anything less is a false claim. You could just as easily claim your game will support up to a million players, and then say "Well, 50 is between one and a million." It would be absolutely fine for you to tune your game to what your players have told you that they want. What is not fine is for you to tell potential buyers that they will be able to do things in your game that they simply cannot do as it exists today. What you've done is the same as telling someone that the car you're selling can go 100mph, when in fact it can only go 50mph.

Sergey Titov: And we've corrected text on Steam. As I've said -- it was done less than 18 hours after we've started selling game. After that -- after text was changed -- over 7 hours passed.

GameSpy: Steam still says -- I'm looking at it right now -- "Up to 100 players per game server." That is a false claim.

Sergey Titov: Let me ask you -- what YOU think we should put there, since we do not know what number of slots will be on official servers tomorrow -- 20,30, 50, 70 or 100?

GameSpy: I think you should put the minimum you can deliver. If you deliver more, that's a bonus that no one can claim they were misled about. If you deliver less, you have failed to deliver on a promise.

Sergey Titov: Okay good point -- so you think that if we'll have server with 100 players up and running it means we've delivered even if everybody will hate it ?

GameSpy: If you believe everyone will hate it with 100 players, it is totally reasonable for you to turn down the maximum number of players. It is not reasonable for you to tell me I can play with 100 players and then only allow me to play with 50 players. Who is responsible for updating the Steam page text? Hammerpoint or Valve?

PR Rep: They do the actual updates based on info we send.

GameSpy: So, will you be sending them an updated version of the text that specifies that A) the current player cap is 50, and B) that this is a "foundational release," and not what people have come to expect of a finished product?

Sergey Titov: We have several private servers with over 100 slots on them. I think we [will] just tune it down to 100 slots and make it available to public. This is right thing to do as I think. We have demo servers with 130 and 150 players on them. But it's internal at the moment. I've asked if we can add them quickly to public pool.

Update: 100-player servers are now confirmed online.

GameSpy: That would be good. Will you be issuing an apology to people who purchased The War Z under the impression that features that are planned for the future exist today?

Sergey Titov: I think we'll do that by sending them personalized emails and explaining what to expect from the game now and in upcoming weeks/months. Bottom line - this is issue that affected at most few percent of active War Z audience and thus it should be dealt with on [a] case-by-case basis.

GameSpy: So, no public apology for misleading people on the Steam store page?

Sergey Titov: Actually we've already posted explanation on our forums that is available to public.

GameSpy: This post doesn't address the fact that there were false claims made.

Sergey Titov: I think there's difference between false claims and perception of the text.

GameSpy: There does not appear to be a reasonable way that this could be read any other way, when the sections are titled "About the game" and "Key features," and both contain things that do not yet exist.

Sergey Titov: Ah ok. Yes we're going to post about fact that information on the Store page was presented in incorrect format/layout. That was our mistake obviously. Which we've corrected early morning today.

Update: Titov has posted a new apology on The War Z's forums. However, it claims that we "misread information about game features," not that Hammerpoint incorrectly stated that features would be included.

GameSpy: Mostly corrected. Again, the Steam page still makes no mention of the fact that this is a "Foundation release." It is simply labeled as "The War Z."

Sergey Titov: What's difference ? I mean -- I'd love to adjust that BTW -- I just personally don't see what difference does it make? Ie -- THIS IS "THE WAR Z" game. It's not like there'll be "final release" or anything like this.

GameSpy: Then why was the press release sent out calling it a Foundation Release instead of simply a release?

Sergey Titov: This is what we call it. There's no such thing as "Release" for an online game. More important - you can't just add "foundation release" or any other words to the title of the game on Steam. It's like -- The War Z is a title of the game. We can of course add VERSION in ABOUT GAME section....

GameSpy: So as far as you're concerned, The War Z is officially out of beta and fully released, correct?

Sergey Titov: Nope - there's no such thing as "fully released" for online game. As far as I'm concerned The War Z is in stage when we're ready to stop call it Beta. This is basic version - bones that we're going to add more and more "meat" - features and content in a coming months and hopefully years.

GameSpy: By "fully released," of course, I mean as released as any online game is at its official launch. For example, when PlanetSide 2 removed its beta label and opened its doors to the public, it was considered fully released even though it will obviously continue to evolve.

Can you tell us where we should direct players who are upset about inaccurate promises should go to request a refund? Should that be done through you, or through Steam support?

Sergey Titov: They should contact Steam support - we can't refund Steam payments since we do not have access to Steam for that. The way Steam works -- they're acting like any other retail outlet -- they sell the game, get payments from customers, they process refunds, fraud, etc and once in awhile they send us money with reporting on how many units were sold, fraud/refunds, etc... If [a] player bought [the] game from us directly -- they should use e-mail, phone numbers, or support website that's included on their receipts -- this is due [the] fact we're using numerous of payment providers.

GameSpy: Alright, thank you Sergey. We will pass that along. We appreciate your time.

Sergey Titov: As for information about Steam webpage -- we'll post [an] official explanation to our forums, and yes we'll apologize for presenting information in a way that allowed different interpretation. Such as "up to 100 player' issue -- clearly you think about it one way, myself and other people I just asked think it's totally acceptable to say this. But once again -- I personally think that bottom line is -- do we have happy players or not. At the end this is what we're aiming for.

Yes, we can all agree that happy players are the end goal of any game developer. But how you get there does matter, and this kind of behavior, whether it's negligence and miscommunication/mistranslation or (less likely in this case, because if so, why would he even talk to us?) a scam -- is completely unacceptable from game makers. What's even worse, though, is that Hammerpoint has cast a shadow of doubt over the other Steam store pages. Are they really not policed at all? It would seem not. Again, we'll let you know if we hear from Valve on that.

The other burning question right now is: is The War Z any good? Our thorough investigation -- aka "review" -- is underway now, so we'll let you know ASAP what we think of it. It should be noted, though, that even this kind of shocking behavior won't automatically deduct points from its score. Especially now that the Steam store page will (hopefully) be accurate by the time our review is posted, the review and score will be based on the condition of The War Z at the time.

As news breaks about War Z being unfinished, even through it found it’s way to digital shelves, there are deeper problems with the game that just haven’t come to light. Yes, Destructoid and Kotaku are both correct in reporting that the game is far from being finished, and that it’s nothing more than a glorified beta. Yes, Hammerpoint Interactive is trying very hard to make this turd shine as brightly as they possibly can, but there is a lot more under the surface that hasn’t come to light yet. Like who is Hammerpoint Interactive? Why did they ban a bunch of accounts recently?

For those that don’t know, War Z is the name of a new zombie survival game that has been released to Steam’s digital shelves for 14.99 USD. Hammerpoint Interactive touts their own game as being “the world’s first zurvival mmo Zombie Game.” Continuing on with their quote, “You may have played Zombie Games before – now it’s time to live one.” If you think about it, and knowing about the Arma II mod DayZ is, this is very egotistical coming from a developer that is completely unknown.

Our own Video Producer, Josh, was excited by the game knowing the amount of hype that Day Z had when it first appeared. He decided to buy into the beta, at the $25 USD level. Not only being able to play in the beta, but he was also given 3 guest keys for 24 hours to give to his friends and 15 USD worth of in game currency. Like anyone else, he downloaded the game and played it for about an hour.

He returned the next day, and when he tried to log in he was greeted with a message that said he had been banned, from the beta. Josh isn’t the kind of guy to go into a game looking to hack it and cheat his way through it. In fact, with only an hour worth of playtime to his name, he found it difficult to believe that he was banned for cheating.

As just about any one of us would do, he contacted customer support, only to find out that a different company is handling customer support, Xsolla Support, a company known for payment transaction services. After asking why he was banned, he was given a blanket statement:

"It has come to our attention that your account has been banned.Your game account was blocked due to a violation of Clause 2.a which is one of the User Agreement clauses:Clause 2. a. Use cheats, automation software (bots), hacks, mods or any other third-party software designed to modify, enhance, or otherwise alter the Service, the Game Client or the Game experience without the express written consent of OP Productions.Upon completion of your payment you accepted the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.At this point we are unable to initiate a refund.If you feel that you did not violate the Terms of Service, please contact game support at:support@thewarz.com. Once Game Support has completed their investigation, they will email you with their findings."

The response given was very cookie cutter, and very professional even though it wasn’t from Hammerpoint Interactive, or anyone really associated with how WarZ runs. He has since gotten a hold of WarZ support, and hasn’t heard from them at the time of writing. His original message to support was on December 15th.

We found out that Josh wasn’t the only person smacked with the ban hammer on December 14th. In fact anywhere from 250 – 500 players of WarZ were hit with a ban and a blanket statement saying they were cheating. When people started to take to the WarZ forums asking about why they were banned and if they were going to get their money back, because the game was still in beta at this point in time, the forums turned into a war zone.

Things got so bad that the forums were put on lock down. Players weren’t allowed to open new threads on the forums, new players couldn’t register on the forums, and posts about being banned from the game were being deleted as fast as possible as forum moderators were starting to drink deep from their powers. Reasons for banning people went from professional blanket statements to rude, vulgar and unprofessional taunts, two examples from earlier in the month are pictured below.

One of WarZ’s former moderators, Devin Hutchinson, took to other forums out there to report on the unprofessional actions of other WarZ moderators. He revealed that most of the PR and Community management for WarZ is being taken care of by unpaid volunteers saying, “I then made a post on the forums about how I knew this was coming; and I was sorry and would [no] [longer] be supporting a company that did not support their unpaid volunteer Moderators that spent over 100+ hours answering THEIR CUSTOMERS questions and concerns as well as relaying them the ideas the community had for their [cruddy] game.” Devin also publicly stated, “They randomly ban accounts that have a certain amount of time spent playing in-game, knowing they are hooked on the game so they re-buy the game” (found here)

Why don’t they employ a community manager? Wouldn’t it be better to have a paid professional taking care of customers and dealing with the messy work of bans. And it’s not like smaller indie companies don’t employ community managers. Putting that much power in the hands of unpaid volunteers is not a good business model.

The crux of the issue isn’t that they just rushed a game through beta to pop onto digital shelves. It’s all the questions that we are left with, starting with who the hell is Hammerpoint Interactive? I have never heard of a studio/development team not having a website, let alone not having a facebook page, twitter account, youtube channel, or even a twitch TV channel. The War Z twitch TV channel is run by Arktos Entertainment who is the publisher of the game. Also, Sergey Titov the head of Hammerpoint, is also the head of Arktos Entertainment, OP Productions (who is credited at the bottom of the War Z website, Online Warmongers, and War Inc. (The game that War Z is ripped from). Hammerpoint Interactive isn’t even the company listened on the War Z’s domain registry.

This whole situation and the game stinks of foul play and appears to be nothing more than a cash grab. This is also one of the few reasons why buying into a game before it’s even released is a bad idea. Shady company, shady dealings, and games that don’t live up to their promises. The best advice I could give here for anyone, is make sure you know who you are giving your money to before you buy into a game early. You never know exactly what is going to happen to it. Josh lost his 25 USD, so you shouldn’t have to.

Controversial zombie survival game The War Z has been removed from Steam.

Although there's still a listing for the game on Valve's digital distribution service, you can no longer buy it.

Fans have been clamoring for the game's removal from Steam since it was released on Monday. Many gamers have criticized the game for its misleading description, controversial microtransactions, and forum censorship. For more on the War Z debacle, check out our full roundup.

Update: In response to Kotaku's request for comment, Valve issued the following statement:

From time to time a mistake can be made and one was made by prematurely issuing a copy of War Z for sale via Steam. We apologize for this and have temporary removed the sale offering of the title until we have time to work with the developer and have confidence in a new build. Those who purchase the game and wish to continue playing it via Steam may do so. Those who purchased the title via Steam and are unhappy with what they received may seek a refund by creating a ticket at our support site here.

Update 2: In response to Kotaku's request for comment, War Z boss Sergey Titov also sent over a statement:

We're making sure that our Store page is 100% correct this is why.

Bottom line – our end goal is to have satisfied and not angry customers, so this is more important for us than everything else.